mirror verse
by prouvaires
Summary: Even if the sea kept running the Moon would only coax it back. - — lily luna/james sirius


**a/n**: mature rating for incest and drinking and drug mentions

* * *

mirror verse

_this is the road to ruin and we're starting at the end. -—_ alone together, fall out boy

* * *

"Lily."

Breath. Dust. Music somewhere.

"Lily, I need you to look at me."

Fingertips hard into velvet. Heel tapping against the floor. Don't fidget. He'll know there's tension.

"Lily. Please."

She jerks her head up at that. Eyes red, narrowed. When she pulls her hands away, she's left bloody fingerprints in the expensive upholstery.

"It's not true."

He presses his lips together. Lily mimics him, then twists into a smirk. It's what's expected. Pieces on a board. When she meets his eyes this time, there's no fidgeting. Cold, relentless disinterest. It doesn't matter how old he is, how wise. She's been playing this game since she could talk.

"You're clever," her head of house tells her now, looking tired suddenly, hand displacing blond curls, "You are, Lily. So you know that it doesn't matter what you tell me now. In a couple of months, we'll know for sure."

"That's not entirely true, Professor."

There is a beat of silence. Professor Nott inclines his head to indicate that she should elaborate.

"I mean, you know, some girls barely show at all, even in the final months. Plus there's abortions, you know? And I might start wearing loose clothing. Then you'd never tell."

His lips quirk at that, and she cannot resist hers doing the same. A shared joke. Fuck these gentle teachers. You're not supposed to share jokes with the people disciplining you.

"If you started wearing loose clothing, Miss Potter," Nott says dryly, "I would probably call your parents for fear that you were dying of a terminal disease."

Lily bites out a laugh, a bitter snick of a thing. "Or pregnant."

He nods then, serious suddenly. "Or pregnant," he agrees.

More silence. Lily is tired of these. Just as she is getting ready to stand, to displace, to do _something_, he pulls his hands out from under the desk, links them and places them on the surface in front of him.

"Let's be frank," he says now, and Lily exhales in relief. For a Slytherin, she's not much cop when people talk around a subject eternally. "I know that this is true. Let's not waste the time of you denying it and going away and me having to prove it. Time's not something you've got much of now."

Lily holds his gaze the entire time. Bravery. That's the Potter thing, right?

"We've had girls in this situation before," her head of house continues, "More than you'd think, actually. Not many, but enough. So here's what needs to happen now: you need to make a decision, and you need to make it soon. You could terminate the pregnancy –" (he doesn't flinch or hesitate at all, and Lily's impressed despite herself) "- or you can carry it to term. That's the most immediate choice. It's morality, I suppose, but you need to think about your own particular circumstances too. This isn't – you're not going to be able to just hide this and have the baby and give it up quietly. I'm afraid Potters don't get that option."

Lily thinks back to newspaper headlines, to dark mutters and vicious denouncements and gossip and rumours multiplying end-over-end until even she wasn't sure of the truth any more. And she nods. Professor Nott moves on, the point uncontested.

"What will happen, if you decide to carry it to term, is that you will be asked to leave Hogwarts for the duration of this year. You can have your baby, do with it what you will, and then return and retake the year."

Lily hisses out a breath at this point. Her reluctance must be clear on her face, because Nott smiles slightly.

"I would recommend treating this as a boon. I understand the majority of Muggle schools advocate expulsion in this situation."

Lily's reply is swift and uncouth. Nott actually laughs.

"Yes, I thought you might struggle to see it that way." He softens again, face serious. Lily does so wish he didn't frown so often. He's so much handsomer when he smiles. "You'll have another month to decide, okay? If you decide to terminate, you can either go to Madam Pomfrey or make your own arrangements, and then just let me know. Slip a note under my door if you like. Whatever you're most comfortable with. But if you decide to keep it, I need to know that too. I'll be here if you want to talk about it at any time, as will the rest of the staff."

Lily's face falls. "They know?" Staff, of course, indicates more for her: Professor Longbottom, age-old family friend. Healer Finnigan, best mate of her cousin Victoire. Professor Lupin, practically adoptive brother. It's tough to know all the gossip about you circulates through people who have been there at every birthday since you were old enough to blow out candles.

"The headmistress knows," Professor Nott tells her gently, "And Madam Pomfrey has been made aware of the situation – she'll need to know in case you decide to go to her. For now, though, that's it. We're not cruel, Lily," he adds now, looking dangerously close to reaching across and patting her hand or something, "I know for you it's more difficult than most."

She withdraws her hands before he allows the temptation to overwhelm him.

"I know, Professor," she replies calmly, "I actually rather wish you weren't so nice. It's so hard to be rebellious when you want to please the people in authority."

He laughs again, then, head tipped back and all, and Lily feels the weight of it settle into her stomach. It's a nice feeling, making people laugh. She doesn't get to enjoy it often.

By the time he recovers, she's itching again. He must sense it, because he sighs and steeples his fingers, elbows on the arms of his chair.

"I would go and think about it," he says finally, regarding her with disturbing astuteness. "I would say don't rush into anything, but despite all the evidence to the contrary I actually think you stand a high chance of being more sensible about this than most."

Lily almost manages a smile at that, and flees the room as soon as she is physically able.

x

James finds her naked on his bed two hours later a third down a bottle of vodka.

"Jesus," he says.

She grins behind the glass. The bottle distorts her face, rippling it outwards.

"No," she replies, "In this situation I'm actually more like the Virgin Mary."

He snorts. "You. The Virgin anything. You're insane."

She laughs then, the sound dark and soft in the stillness. She doesn't have to say anything for him to know why. He doesn't speak either. He just crosses the room and moves onto the bed next to her, one knee against the duvet. By the time his lips meet her temple, she's unfolded herself, breathed out, relaxed. She lets him take the vodka away without a single word of protest.

"We agreed," he murmurs, mouth still against her skin. She breathes out acknowledgement, apology. No drinking in his flat. She promised. She promised a lot of other things, too, but this is the only one she thinks might stick. When her fingers lift to meet his, he pushes them towards her abdomen. His head drops to her shoulder, mouths kisses along it.

"I think I'll kill it," she dares to whisper only now, only here, with James' face against her neck, "I think I'm going to kill it."

He hesitates for the longest moment, lips atop her pulse so lightly it almost tickles. Then his hand splays over her stomach, and she feels his teeth press gently against her throat. She smiles. It's almost feral.

x

They lie side-by-side for some time afterwards. James drags on a cigarette, staring up at the ceiling. Lily traces swirls across his bare chest, follows the line of a tattoo down to an angular hip bone, taps there lightly.

"This is new."

"Hmm?" he replies, lifting his head. The cigarette dangles between his lips, an ashy afterthought.

"This," she clarifies, running her fingers back up the length of the ink. He smiles, shrugs, flops his head back down.

"Yeah. Got it last week. I figure, you get a baby, I might as well do something with my body. Only seems fair."

"Right," she replies wryly, sinking nails into the end of the tattoo, "That definitely levels the playing field."

"Fuck off," is all that floats back in return. Grinning, she tucks herself away into him. This. This is what it needs to be for always.

"Does Albus know?" she asks a few moments later. James sighs and stretches to stub his cigarette out, settles back down and encloses arms around her like that can keep her protected from the world and everything in it that would do her harm.

"I don't know. It's impossible to tell with Al."

"Mm," she concurs, hooking an ankle over his. There is another brief silence, and then suddenly she feels like she wants to be kissing him again, so she swarms upwards and lingers for a second or two just millimetres from his mouth. When her gaze flicks upwards, she finds him regarding her steadily, calmly, hazel eyes warm and laughing.

"Love you, Lil," he confesses into the tiny space between their faces.

"Love you too," she breathes, and then shuts out the gap, presses her mouth to his, feels it open beneath hers. His hands lift lazily to stroke down her back, bumping along the ridges of her spine, his tongue familiar and reassuring against hers. Kissing him oughtn't to feel so much like coming home.

x

He goes with her back to school. Madam Pomfrey, old and lined now but kinder than ever, doesn't seem even a little bit surprised. She's treated both of them endlessly over their years at Hogwarts – James with Quidditch injuries, with bruises and broken bones from fights, with white-lined wrists and too-high alcohol to blood ratios; Lily with the bruises too, with drunken falls and blown-wide pupils and skin that she feels like she's crawling out of. And she's learned that where one of these two is hurt the other is not far behind, hurt themselves or there for comfort, for calm. She had to treat Lily for alcohol poisoning once, and James wasn't there. She doesn't care to repeat the experience.

So she's matter-of-fact as she explains the procedure, gentle as she lies Lily down, manoeuvres around James without a word of complaint as he sits in silence with Lily's hand in his. He helps support her head as she drinks the potion Madam Pomfrey offers up, and reacts only by gripping tighter and going pale as Lily groans and turns her forehead into his knuckles where they rest around hers on the bed.

He doesn't look at the blood on the sheets, barely breathes the whole time they're in there. Once everything is over and the bed is clean again and Lily is lying still and silent, gazing up at the ceiling, Madam Pomfrey leaves them alone and James dares at last climb in beside Lily, wrap his arms around her and pull her in against him. She only cries when she has her head pressed into his chest and her feet tangled around his.

x

Their cousin Victoire's best friend, deputy Healer Niamh Finnigan, finds them like that several hours later. Lily is asleep by this point, chest rising and falling gently, and James is winding her long hair around his fingers and trying not to cry from the weight of it all.

"James," she whispers, accent soft and lilting. James raises his head as far as he dares without waking Lily, and regards her without a word. She frowns and crosses the small cubicle to sink into the chair beside the bed.

"I saw Madam Pomfrey getting the potion out," she explains gently, reaching across him to smooth Lily's hair off her forehead, "I'm sorry this happened."

Still in silence, James sets to wriggling upwards, supporting Lily carefully so she doesn't wake, and manages to sit upright without dislodging her. Lily turns her cheek into his thigh and sighs in her sleep, the sound small and confused. James knots his fingers into her hair to soothe her – the gentle pull has always calmed her down.

"It'll be fine," he says, with more confidence than he feels, "She'll get over it. It's Lily."

Niamh smiles at that, inclines her head in acceptance. She's never met kids more resilient than the Potters.

"Has she told the father?" she asks next, soft and somehow not invasive, "I think he probably has a right to know."

James is too good, has been doing this too long, to give himself away. So he just shrugs, looks down at his sister's sleeping face. "He knows," he allows himself to say, rubbing circles into her scalp, "He's okay with it, I think."

"That's good," Niamh murmurs. When James glances at her next she's looking at him so hard he's genuinely terrified for a short while. Fortunately for him, Professor Nott chooses that moment to arrive. He doesn't seem any more surprised than Niamh had to find James there, despite the fact that he's two years out of Hogwarts already.

"Hello, James," he says calmly, circling the bed to take the free seat on the other side. "How's she doing?"

"Alright, thanks," James replies warily, not bothering to resist the urge to press an arm down Lily's back, gather her closer to him away from prying eyes. Professor Nott's gaze moves down measuredly, studying the careless way Lily's hair is splayed over James' lap, the point at which the crown of her head presses up against his hip. By the time he meets James' eyes again, James is scowling warningly.

"You're very lucky," is all the professor says in the end, voice quiet and carefully accusing, "To be so close. Both of you, I mean. To have each other."

James narrows his eyes and chokes the hasty retort back down. He's made that mistake four times in the past, and he's never making it again.

So he just coughs, blinks, and holds Nott's gaze unwaveringly as he replies, "Yeah, we are. Thanks."

Whatever Professor Nott hoped to achieve here, James judges by the pull of his eyes and the sharp edge to his smile that James has disappointed him. This satisfies him intensely. He's learnt the hard way how to play the games that Slytherins like so much, and knows it surprises them when he, stone-cold Gryffindor, can outclass them so easily. It's not a talent he's surprised by. Nobody could grow up with Lily and not learn to play.

"I'm worried about her," Nott announces now, franker than James was anticipating. Niamh takes the cue to creep off, too kind to desire to intrude on the conversation. "I know you hate having your parents involved in this sort of thing, but it's getting to the point where they need to be made aware. She's totally caught up in this destructive spiral. I should have told them a long time ago, but… well – I guess I don't consider the regular rules as applying to you kids."

James regards him steadily. Nott meets his gaze with an implacable calm. The silence stretches on. And then James ducks his eyes, blows out a laugh, shrugs his shoulders helplessly.

"I get why she likes you so much now," he confesses, lifting a hand to brush a hand through messy hair. "It used to perplex me."

Professor Nott laughs too, and looks a little pleased.

"I'm glad," he admits, frank in return, "A lot of the time I can't tell if she hates me or just tolerates me. I like her too," he continues before James replies, "I mean, more than most of my other students. I'm very fond of her."

James smiles at that, privately and gently, and trails a finger down the side of Lily's face. She turns into the touch, just slightly, ghosts a sigh over his fingertip. His smile widens.

"The people who she lets see past it all usually are," he says, looking back up at Professor Nott, doing his best not to react to the hard way the teacher is looking at him suddenly, "It's – I guess it's difficult not to be, once you realise she's not all tough like she pretends. Most people aren't brave enough to work past that, though."

"Hmm," is all Nott says in reply. The silence eats its way up between them again, cold now, and tense. James is extremely aware that there is something Nott is working his way towards, gathering up the courage to speak aloud.

"James," it comes at last, and he's almost relieved by this point. He looks up and meets Professor Nott's eyes again, face carefully blank, eyes guarded and wary.

"I just," Nott begins again, hedging a moment before hissing a sigh out from between his teeth and taking the plunge, "I just want you to be sure. That this is the right thing. You've got – hm. There's just a lot more on you two than there are on most people. You stand to lose a lot more."

James grins at that, so suddenly that Nott looks faintly taken aback.

"That's a common misconception," he explains, still grinning, although the humour's very morbid, "The only things we care about losing are each other and Albus. Everything else is surplus."

"That's not a very healthy way to be," Professor Nott points out quietly.

"No," James agrees, tone still light, "No, I suppose not."

Silence again. Nothing breaks it this time until Lily stirs, mumbles something sleepily, turns her face into James' lap with a groan of annoyance.

"It's too bright," comes the muffled complaint, her body undulating on top of the sheets as she stretches the aches and tiredness out, "Turn the sky off."

Professor Nott and James both laugh at that, and Lily rolls over and flops onto her back, regarding her head of house from between eyelids narrowed to slits.

"Oh," she says guardedly, "You."

"Me," Nott agrees, smiling with a fondness that most other people fail to maintain when Lily's at her spikiest, "I've been having a nice chat with your brother here."

"Nice," she repeats suspiciously, and twists her head to look up at James. He puts a hand down to her forehead, brushes his fingertips across the skin there in warning. She's too open, too recently awoken, to be enough on her guard. The green of her eyes is clear and warm in a way it only is when they are alone together in the safety of James' bedroom, sharing secrets beneath the sheets.

"It's okay," she murmurs in response to the worry on his face, reaching a hand up to intertwine her fingers with his where they rest against her head, "I like Professor Nott. He's – he won't tell anyone. Right?" she questions, rolling her head back to her head of house. Nott looks sad to his very soul as he replies affirmatively.

"Right."

Lily smiles, an open sunbeam of a thing, and then shifts onto her side, pressing her face against the side of James' thigh. He can feel her breathing warming his skin through the denim of his jeans.

"I'm sorry," she mutters, the apology almost hidden by his leg, "I'm sorry I killed it."

James ignores Professor Nott's presence, ignores his own unease, his own guilt. Ignores everything except his sister. He winds his fingers into her hair the way he knows she likes best, and pulls gently for comfort.

"Don't ever be," he murmurs back. Lily lifts her face just far enough to show him the beginnings of a smile, a sad little thing, tucked away behind messy locks of hair.

"I should go," Nott says, breaking the moment. James, when he looks at him, is surprised to find only resignation, not disgust or accusation or fear. "I have a class to teach in five minutes."

"Bye, sir," Lily calls as Nott circles the bed and strides towards the curtain. He glances back just as she lifts her head to blow him a kiss across James' lap, and can't help smiling.

"Be good," he tells her before he disappears. Lily laughs.

"He's been saying that to me since I started at this school," she explains as she moves aside to allow James room to snuggle back down in the bed beside her, "I think I've maybe listened twice. Perhaps less."

James laughs, and wraps his arms around her again. She presses up against him willingly, mouths soft little kisses to the hollow between his collarbones.

"How do you think he figured it out?" James asks in a murmur. Lily shrugs, gusts out a sigh.

"He knows me pretty well. I didn't realise that until quite recently. But he does. He's good at extrapolation, too. Plus I guess we're not that subtle, not really. If we weren't related people would have jumped to the conclusion months ago. But people's minds don't usually go that way, you know?"

"Yeah," James sighs. Lucky, he guesses.

x

He takes her back to his, though she's not got permission to leave the school grounds. He's not sure who'd be more surprised if the school actually decided to try to do something about her sneaking off – him, Lily, or the staff themselves.

He tucks her up in bed, litters kisses all over her face until she's laughing and twisting, trying to fight him off. He plonks one final one onto the end of her nose, and then pulls away chuckling. When she looks up at him, unguarded and open there against his sheets, for some reason it's hard not to cry.

"Don't be scared," she says gently, lifting a hand to drift it across his cheeks, brushing at his freckles, "We're going to be okay."

"We're always okay," he reminds her, taking her hand to press his lips to the palm.

"Yeah," she agrees, smiling softly. In the lamplight, she looks very young.

x

After she goes back to Hogwarts, James doesn't hear from her for four days. It shouldn't be huge, but it terrifies him all the same. Everything seems precarious, suddenly, although it's all back to the way it was before that day when Lily pressed a positive pregnancy test into his palm and fled from his flat. He has this awful sense that they're teetering on the edge of something, and there's no safety nets this time.

On Friday, he gets two letters within minutes of each other. The first he takes from a burly brown owl, and has just sat down to open it when a second bird starts tapping at the window. Recognising it, he leaps up and discovers a hastily-scrawled letter, attached to the leg of Lily's sweet little owl.

_Niamh heard, _Lily has written, and James can feel her rage churning off the page, sending her writing scratchy and biting, _She overheard what we said to Professor Nott and she told Neville. Nott says she thought she was doing the right thing. Mum and Dad are coming. They'll be here by the time you get this. They want you to come too. Don't come. Go somewhere, please. Please James, go somewhere far away, so it doesn't get you too._

James burns the letter with a calm that scares even him. Then he gathers Lily's owl up to his breast, brushing careful fingers across her delicate head. She butts up into his touch, cooing softly, and James finds himself stifling an almost hysterical laugh. Trusting and soft, this owl. She embodies Lily so perfectly – the way she is buried way down inside. On the outside, Lily projects like Albus' owl, a monstrous hulking beast of a thing just as likely to bite you as let you attach a letter to its leg. Funny how things like that work out.

James tucks the owl inside his jumper, and then strides over to the fire. Before he can think anything through, he hurls floo powder in, and spins off towards Hogwarts.

When he lands on his knees in Professor Nott's office, the teacher doesn't even look surprised.

"Hello, James," he says casually, moving across to help James to his feet. James, uncharacteristically, allows the helping hand, using Nott's strength to heave himself to his feet. Without saying a word, he fishes around inside his jumper and withdraws the owl, lifting it up to perch on his shoulder. Nott smiles, a tight movement, and lifts his fingers to the bird. She submits to the caress as cheerfully as she had to James', and James almost rolls his eyes. A situation any less severe and he would have done.

"I want you to know," Nott announces as James strides towards the door without a word more, "I need you to know that I didn't say anything. Not a word."

James pauses with his hand on the door handle.

"I know," he replies, glancing back over his shoulder. "I'd suggest you pretend you didn't know at all. It'll make your life a hell of a lot easier."

Without waiting for a response, he flings the door open and stalks out into the hallway. He runs into a couple of Lily's housemates while making his way out of the dungeons, girls who would probably be her friends if she let herself trust anybody. They look like they might stop him and ask what he's doing there, but the look on his face is so murderous that they just move aside for him in silence.

It takes him one agonising half hour to reach the staircase leading to the headmistress' office, and he uses every single ounce of control he possesses to keep his mind blank. He will not overthink this, will not worry himself to sickness over it. There is too much to lose. He spits the password out through gritted teeth, and storms up the stairs without waiting for them to carry him up. When he flings open the door to the office, four astonished faces turn towards him.

"Do _all _my students know my password?" the headmistress inquires with a forced smile, desperately seeking an ounce of levity, "Or is it just your family?"

"Lucy knows everything," James hears Lily reply, hidden in the depths of a high-backed chair, "And she's easy to bribe."

James very deliberately doesn't look at either of his parents as he crosses the room. Without a word, he conjures up a chair beside Lily and drops into it, faking nonchalance, passing her owl back to her for an excuse to meet her eyes.

"_Deny everything_," she mouths in the instant they are looking at each other, her hands closing around his.

"So," James says, turning back to look at the headmistress, voice infused with the perfect amount of boredom, "Is there a reason we're all here? I'm a busy man, you know. Places to be, people to see."

"_James_," his mother hisses in horror. When he looks at her, she has a handkerchief pressed to her mouth, and it looks an awful lot like she might cry.

"Mum," he replies in honestly brilliant false astonishment, "What's the matter? Is it Albus?"

"You –" his mother chokes out, but then Harry closes a hand over her knee, stops the accusation in its tracks.

"I think we need to just get all of this out in the open," Professor Bones announces, letting her voice ring out with all the authority of her position. "James, Lily, Healer Finnigan came to Professor Longbottom this morning with – with some disturbing worries about you two. She said she had overheard you talking to Professor Nott, and then each other, in such a way that implied…" the headmistress breaks off here, clenches her hands on the desk in front of her and then stretches them out, wildly uncomfortable, "In a way that implied that you two are – have been _intimate _with each other. Sexually."

Their parents' quickened breathing is the only sound in the silence – until James and Lily cast a glance at each other, and burst out laughing.

"Oh my _god_!" Lily gasps, and James knows for a fact that he is the only person who can see that the mirth goes only two layers down.

"Are you _serious_?" James concurs, breathless himself, bent almost double with laughter, "Oh, god. How gross."

The silence from all other parts of the room is stony, but James can sense his parents starting, tentatively, to unwind. They have never had a clue just how good at these games their children are, and are all too prepared to believe falsehoods now.

"_Intimate_," Lily heaves out beside James, so helpless with laughter she has tears forming in her eyes.

"Well," Professor Bones says, breaking into their mirth, "I take it you are denying this claim then?"

James just nods, laughing too hard to form words. Gradually, he and Lily calm down, still hiccupping with laughter occasionally, allowing themselves the odd glance at each other just to provoke further chuckles. Their parents are quiet still, but they seem more relaxed. Harry's hand is no longer digging into Ginny's knee, at least.

"I think, in that case," Professor Bones begins, but then Neville, lurking behind her, steps forward and clears his throat apologetically.

"I am sorry, truly," he leads with, looking it, "But Niamh seemed quite sure when she came to me. She said she heard you say that Professor Nott figured you out, that you weren't subtle. That –" he pauses here, takes in a deep breath, "- that if you weren't related people would have thought it a lot sooner. I'm sorry. I wish I didn't have to press this – Harry, you know I wish I didn't. But I do, we do, this is –"

"I understand, Neville, it's fine," says Harry. The look on his face tells James that it is anything but. Both his parents are looking at him and Lily now, their expressions begging him to come up with a plausible explanation, with anything to counteract this. James has never wanted to hold Lily's hand more, but it's the last thing he could do right now.

"Alright," Lily pipes up suddenly from beside James, acting thoroughly resigned, "Look, I'm sorry. I really am. James is just – James is trying to protect me. He's a good brother. The truth is, I slept with Teddy. Teddy Lupin," she clarifies, when the adults in the room proceed to look bewildered. "It was just this one time, but it was – it was while he was still married to Victoire. It was… it was a bad decision. The related thing was… well, Teddy's practically my brother, you know? It should have been like if I shagged James or Al, ugh. But for some reason it wasn't. I'm sorry. I didn't want anybody to know, and neither did he."

James is staring very hard at her now, trying to read her face. This is a lie, this _must _be a lie – and yet there is nothing but truth in her face, even to his well-trained eye. It takes every ounce of willpower he possesses not to tighten his hands on the arms of his chair, to demand an explanation. She will not meet his eyes any longer.

"_Lily_," their mother breathes in scandalised horror, and James shuts his eyes for a moment, doing his best to close all his senses down. When he opens them again, his mother is angrily remonstrating with his sister, talking about _boundaries _and _morality _and _decency_. James barely fights back the urge to laugh. Instead he blows out a mock-annoyed breath, and finds deep reserves of courage within himself.

"Well, Merlin, Lil," he interrupts his mother's tirade to say, "All that effort to cover it up and you go and blow it. That's like a year of my life I'm never getting back."

She still won't meet his eyes.

x

The meeting wraps up quickly after that. The excuse will not stand up to any close scrutiny, but James is confident that the people involved want to believe it enough that they will permit themselves to – and besides, from the looks of things Teddy will corroborate without knowing that the secret was merely covering up a much darker one.

Lily does not come home with him. The agreement is unspoken but quickly made – it will look more suspicious than ever if she disappears with him. She'll go off-campus anyway, James is sure of that, but she'll end up in some Muggle club somewhere rather than in his bed. He's going to Al's, just to throw the bloodhounds off for a little while.

He's angry with her, anyway. He knows she knows it too. She never misses it.

He walks down to the school gates with his parents, both James and his mother tapping their wands against their thighs in the same anxious habit. It's one he's never been able to kick. Little showers of red flick out whenever Ginny's wand hits her leg, and it doesn't take James long to realise what she's nervous about.

"Look," he pipes up as their feet crunch against the gravel, "I know this rumour comes up a lot. Like, we ignore the magazines and stuff, but it's still out there. Lily and Al and I are – we're closer than most kids, you know? We kind of have to be. We've got to present this impenetrable wall or they'll tear us apart. It doesn't bother us that they say these kinds of things, but I know it does you. But I promise," James puts his hand over his heart here, means every word he says as they trudge on through the gloom of the evening, "I swear to you that I would never, _ever _do anything that would hurt Lily. She's – she's my baby sister. I love her more than life itself."

His father draws to a halt suddenly. James and Ginny both pause, too, looking over at him curiously. He takes in a deep breath, pushes his glasses up his nose, works his jaw for a moment or two like he's picking his way towards something. When it comes, it is not at all what James had expected.

"I'm sorry," Harry says, his voice low and serious, "I'm sorry that you kids had to grow up like this. Your mother and I – we never thought this would happen. It's like… God, it's like you're waging this constant war of attrition, so many people trying to wear you down. I wish… I wish there was something we could do, could have done, to stop it ever happening."

James smiles at that, a little half-amused thing, and shrugs. "S'alright, Dad, really. It's not your fault. Besides, we're tough, yeah? We've got your genes. And Mum's. You battled _Voldemort_, for crying out loud. All three of us, we've got that capacity inside us somewhere, I guess."

Harry chuckles then, head inclining to one side to concede the point, "You know, sometimes I watch the three of you together and I reckon you could probably have defeated Voldemort once and for all back when Lily was in first year. You're actually – you're kind of terrifying. I mean, for those who don't know you. I think that's one of the reasons so much gossip tries to tear into you. It breaks my heart, it really does. But they envy and wonder at that closeness. I know –" he pauses here, reaches out a hand towards his wife, touches fingertips to her elbow gently, "- I know people don't really get it. They make up horrible rumours about you to explain it. But we do. Your Aunt Hermione and Uncle Ron get it too. There are some things you just can't go through without becoming incredibly close."

Ginny laughs, then, a half-remembered story no doubt, and James welcomes the new levity. He doesn't understand the reference, but he's more than willing to permit his parents in-jokes. He's kept enough from them over the years. He does it mostly for their benefit, but still.

He watches his parents as they stand there laughing in the darkening evening. Both of them lined and tired, hair beginning to flush with grey, inclining themselves instinctively, subconsciously towards each other. He's feeling the faint stirrings of something fairly awestruck, fairly jealous, when they turn back towards him. He lifts one shoulder in a half shrug, dispelling the unsettling feelings.

"We know about Lily getting pregnant too," his mother says steadily, not letting him dive his gaze aside, "Professor Nott wrote to tell us. Don't be mad at him, James, he had to. He's worried about her."

James casts his eyes up to heaven. "We're a_ll _worried about her."

"Still. She's always – she's a practical young lady, I can't believe she let it happen. She's always been so sensible, so…"

"Calculated," Harry interjects. When his son and wife turn to look at him in surprise, he just raises his shoulders in a gesture of helplessness, "It's true. You know it is. Things happen to Lily because she wants them to, never otherwise."

There's a heavy truth in that. James elects to ignore it.

"She's got it a lot less under control than you think," James tells them finally, twisting his mouth to the side, frowning slightly as he tries to figure out the best way to word this, "She does that tough thing, you know? Where she convinces everybody that she's unbreakable, that everything happens precisely the way she means it to. But really she's just – she just adapts quickly. She's good at turning circumstance in her favour. Al is, too. It's a thing they do a lot. They just manipulate chance brilliantly."

"That's –" Ginny begins, but James overrides her, moving on hastily.

"But, like, don't be scared about her in that regard. I… I _know _her. So does Al. And as long as there's at least a couple of people who see right through her, she'll be fine."

His mother and father regard him steadily for a moment or two.

"You really do, don't you," says Harry with a faint tone of wonderment, "All of you three. You see each other a way no-one else does. A way not even _we _do."

"Aw, don't take that personally, Dad," James retorts, grinning, determined to lighten the mood, "No children ever really let their parents know them past the age of sixteen. We just got a bit of a headstart."

"Hm," Harry replies, looking disapproving, and James laughs. That sets them off, too, and it is in much lighter moods that the three of them resume the walk down to the gates. James does his best not to hold his breath the whole time. It seems possible, just barely possible, that he has convinced them utterly.

"Say hi to Al for us," Ginny says as they pass out of Hogwarts' boundaries and prepare to apparate to their respective destinations, "Oh, and could you tell him Rose is trying to get hold of him? She can't get through on his mobile or home phone."

"Will do," replies James, and disapparates without further ado.

x

Al's waiting for him when he finally arrives.

"Rose is trying to get hold of you," James announces as he breezes past him into his sitting room, not giving any greeting other than that, "Mum asked me to tell you."

Albus shuts the door behind him and turns with exaggerated slowness as James flops onto the sofa, pulling a blanket towards himself. James has the unfailing ability to make himself utterly at home wherever he ends up. Normally, this only makes Al shake his head in fond exasperation. Tonight, it has him bunching his fists up at his sides. His rage is silent and cold, and James narrows his eyes as he picks up on it. It's almost harder to deal with a pissed-off Albus than it is a pissed-off Lily – Lily gets her anger all up in your face. Albus nurses his at a low, persistent simmer.

"What," James begins, but before he can do anything further Albus has sprung across the room with a tight, controlled expression, and punched him in the face. James is so surprised it takes him a moment or two to react any further than rolling away from the force of it. Finally, reality catches up with him, however.

"What the _fuck_?!" he howls, hands lifting to aching cheek, clutching as pain flares up sharp and hungry. Albus is standing over him, the most threatening James has ever seen him look, and his face is whiter than white.

"How _could you_, James?" he demands, voice low and arctic. James' fury smoothes out into something much smaller and guiltier. This is it, then. Albus has finally decided to break his "_don't want to know won't ask_" attitude. James doesn't pay him the insult of trying to deny it.

"You read Niamh's letter, huh?" He works his jaw in slow circles between words, trying to ease the ache out. Al doesn't look even a little bit like he regrets the punch yet. James supposes that it was entirely justifiable.

"I read it," comes the reply, and _god_, how does a person even _fit _that much tension inside them without exploding? Every muscle in Al's body looks wired, and colour has started to flare red and dramatic in his cheeks. "I suppose you came up with some plausible excuse for Mum and Dad?"

"Lily says she slept with Teddy," James informs him, unable to stop the jealousy and anger infusing his tone. Albus shuts his eyes. James wonders if that is the final tipping point towards Al losing it for maybe the first time in recorded history. 'Cool' doesn't even begin to describe his brother usually .

"I read Nott's letter, too," Al says next, eyes sliding open again, fixing James with that special knife-gaze of his. "I cannot believe that you are enough of an asshole to not just _fuck _our little sister, but actually get her pregnant too."

Al's mouth around the words sounds so awful that James finds himself shrinking back into the sofa. There is a long, weighted silence between them. And then James sits back up straight, glares right back, and spits out, "I know you fucked her too."

Albus' lips twist the same way James' always do, and his tension seems to shift, somehow. Like it's suddenly focusing inwards as much as it is at James.

"You know I regret that. I told you, I _told_ you how much I regret that."

"And I told you it's not a big deal," replies James instantly, spotting his chance and ploughing towards it with relentless determination, "You were so high you thought you were an _atom_, for fuck's sake, and Lily was – she was in that twisting phase. Kept trying to pit us against each other."

Silence prowls between them again. And then Al chokes out, "Jesus," and flings himself down onto the sofa beside James. James accepts the ceasefire with deep relief, and loops an arm around his brother's neck to communicate this.

"I can't decide what's worse," Al mutters after another few moments of quiet, his jaw moving against James' arm, chest rising and falling beneath his hand, "The sex itself or the fact that it doesn't bother me anywhere near the amount it should."

James lets his head flop against the back of the sofa.

"I have no idea."

"I think we just operate on a different plane of reality, maybe," Al hypothesises, gazing into the middle-distance, "The things we do don't happen the same way as they do when other people do them."

"God, I'd like that to be true," James replies with truly heartfelt sincerity, "Because my theory is that we're all just completely fucked up. Go-straight-to-jail, no hope of recovery fucked-up. The sick, gross kind."

"Well," says Al, grinning slightly all of a sudden, "At least you and I never screwed each other."

"We could rectify that," James points out with deadpan seriousness, and he feels the vibration of Al's laughter seconds later. He joins in almost instantly.

"It's just," Al announces quite suddenly after he's finished laughing, "It's just – fuck. There's nobody that gets it, you know? You two, you're the only ones who know what this is like intimately enough for me to open up to."

James' voice is gentle as he inquires, "Is that why you're avoiding Rose?"

"Yeah," Al replies with the heave of a sigh, "I talked to her last week. I was high again, I can't even remember what I'd taken. And suddenly getting her advice about it all seemed like such a good idea. I mean, Uncle Ron and Aunt Hermione are 'Big War Heroes' too, you know?" His voice goes funny the way it always does when they talk about the war – bitter at what it has turned their lives into, but so, _so _respectful of the incredible courageous feats their parents achieved. "But, I don't know. They're not _The Boy Who Lived_, neither of them have jobs that place them in the spotlight like Mum's did when she played for the Harpies. And Rose is – well, Rose is fucking _Rose_. If her life was like this she'd deal with it like it was nothing."

James sighs his agreement at that. He is privately of the opinion that there could be a nuclear holocaust and Rose would handle that with the same breezy dignity that she handles everything else.

"You told her about you and Lily?" he prods.

"Unfortunately," Al replies, forcing out a laugh that sounds not even a little bit amused, "She said she wasn't really surprised. She said we didn't – we don't have the same boundaries most siblings do. She said she thought you and Lily were probably fucking, too. I mean, she put it nicer than that. But that's what she meant."

"Well," says James after a moment or two, "I'd better buy her a really, _really _nice Christmas present to keep her sweet then."

"I told her I didn't think so," Al informs him with a careless shrug, "You two have always just been super tactile. Mum has all those pictures of when you were little and she'd find you curled up together in such weird places. Like that time we piled all Mum and Dad's clothes into that little playhouse of Lily's and then you two somehow fucking squeezed yourselves in and fell asleep?"

James lets out a bellow of laughter at that. "Fuck, I remember her getting those pictures out!" he exclaims with glee, "Amazing. We were talented kids. You know we can still get in there?"

Albus turns to look at him askance, "I do not believe you."

"It's true! We did it about a month ago. I've got the thing in my flat for when Dominique brings Olivia round. Lily said she bet we couldn't get in it again, so _obviously _we had to try."

"That thing's tiny," Al argues dubiously, one eyebrow raised in an intimidating manner that James is fairly sure he picked up off Scorpius Malfoy.

"Well, I had to have my leg sticking out one of the windows, but otherwise we were in," James informs him firmly. He's still very proud of the feat. Albus regards him suspiciously for a moment or two more, but then rolls his eyes and relapses, flopping back down into the depths of the sofa. Nothing his siblings do can surprise him anymore.

They get up to make dinner not long after that, moving around each other with an easy familiarity in the kitchen, Albus masterfully prepping vegetables as James takes charge of the main part of the meal. Over dinner, the conversation wanders back to their sister, apparently a running undercurrent to all talking tonight.

"D'you think it's true?" Al asks, spooning carrots onto his plate, "What she said about Teddy?"

James pauses with his fork halfway to his mouth and considers for a moment or two.

"Yeah," he says finally, doing his best to seem calm about it, "I can tell when she's lying, and she wasn't. I don't – fuck, it must have been last year at least. She says it was when he was still with Victoire."

"Were you guys –" Al begins, and James cuts him off with a quick, terse nod before he can get any further. He's aware how awful it is to not want to hear the words out loud, but he figures it's just another item on the long list of all his deficiencies and sicknesses. Al makes a noise of sympathy, and then turns his attention to cutting his meat up.

"Fuck," James breathes out at last, "I'm not – I don't want to be this fucking _possessive_. It's gross. I mean, we're not even… it's not a _thing_, I don't – we don't _think _of it like that. She's just – ugh," he growls at last, interrupting his own messy speech, letting his cutlery clatter down onto his plate and pushing his hands into his hair, his head bowed over, "I just imagine them together and it makes me understand what pushes people to use the Unforgiveable Curses."

Albus closes warm hands around his wrists and pulls gently, coaxing James back out into the light. "You're in love with her," he says, the moment his eyes meet his brother's. James recoils, some lingering shred of morality set alight.

"No, God, it's not –"

"James," Albus interrupts with an icy, terrifying firmness, "We need to lay this all out if it's going to get solved. You can't just keep running in circles around the truth of it. You're trying to run away because you don't understand it but it's just hauling you back in like the moon does the sea. You love her. Proper love, romantic love, possessive desperate dangerous love."

James does his best not to panic. "How would you know?" he bites out, focusing on the will to antagonise, "Huh? How would you know? You're not inside me."

"Because that's all there is with you and Lily," his brother replies quietly, "That's what she inspires in you. You're two compasses pointed unwaveringly to each other. This isn't all on you," he reassures him gently, fingers massaging James' pulse points on either wrist now, soft and calming, "She's the same with you. That's why she fucks around with your head so much more than mine. She can't have a thing without being terrified it's going to leave her."

"Christ," says James, "You really see to the centre of us both."

Al offers him this tiny little half-grin, achingly similar to Lily's, and shrugs. "You get me the same way. You knew how I was feeling about Scorpius _years _before I did."

"That was different," James protests, "And, besides, you weren't fucking him at the time."

"Still wish I had been," Al jokes, and James tips his head back to let out a full-throated roar of laughter.

"Slimy little bastard never deserved you, anyway," he tells him once he's quietened down, meaning it. Al rolls his eyes, but does it so fondly that James can't breathe of it suddenly.

"He's a good guy, James. It's not his fault he's not interested in men."

"He's still a bastard," James insists, catching at Albus' hands now as his brother goes to withdraw them. "I mean it. I still wish I'd broken his neck."

"Well I'm glad you didn't," comes the firm reply, "I'm not sure what the combined prison sentence for incest _and _murder is, but I'm fairly certain it would mean I wouldn't ever get to see you again."

"Nah, it'd probably be okay," James replies breezily, "Lily googled it once. Incest's only two years in this country. And murder's – what, life? Which is only twenty-five. And I'd be so good-looking and well-behaved they'd let me out way before that."

"I'm not sure handsomeness has much to do with the shortening of prison sentences," Albus tells him.

"Handsomeness has something to do with everything in the world, my dear brother," James informs him sagely. Then he ducks, laughing, as Al chucks a crumpled-up napkin at him.

x

They spend most of the rest of the evening playing Call of Duty, and then crash out. James heads out before Al is up in the morning, since Albus can and has slept until three o' clock in the afternoon before, and James doesn't feel much like waiting around.

He spends the rest of the day pottering around Camden, one of his favourite parts of Muggle London, and – doing his best not to think about why – just before he heads back to his own place he buys a bunch of the biggest, most beautiful flowers he can find. He almost throws them in the bin eighteen times between the shop and his flat.

When he lets himself in, he's unsurprised to find Lily curled up on the sofa, tatty blanket wrapped around her, watching him come through the door with wary, catlike eyes.

"Hi," he says calmly, levitating the flowers for a moment or two so he can take off his jumper.

"Hi," she echoes, making no move other than to gather the blanket closer as he toes off his shoes and plucks the bouquet out of the air again. With the flowers in one hand, James simply stands there and watches her for a moment or two. He thinks they're both probably aware that this is leading up to something big.

"I brought you these," he offers at last, and crosses the room towards her with sudden purpose. Lily – so, so slowly – allows the blanket to fall, and accepts the bouquet in silence. Her hands slide over his as she takes them off him, and James manages to claw down the urge to catch at them.

Silence pads back and forth between them like a panther, coiled and tricky. Lily buries her nose in the flowers. When she surfaces again, her eyes are glazed over with pleasure, and she has pollen dusting her nose, obscuring the freckles there.

She opens her mouth to say something, but James cuts her off. He thinks he is about to say something cute and inconsequential, like "You look like a fairy princess," or, "Al says hi," or something. Instead what escapes his mouth is, "I'm in love with you."

Lily, after a pause, closes her mouth. Then she opens it, but changes her mind and promptly shuts it again. James, standing above her, examines every flickering twitch of her face. At long last, she pushes the blanket away completely, and rises to her feet. James follows silently as she heads towards the kitchen. He leans against the doorway as she hauls herself up onto the side to reach the vases on the top shelf of a cupboard, and simply observes as she crosses to the sink to fill it up with water.

He waits as she arranges the flowers in silence, says nothing as she brushes past him to go into the sitting room and place the flowers on top of the piano. Then he steps up behind her as she simply stands and looks at them. His hands tiptoe onto her waist, nowhere any less innocent than that, and he feels the bony contrasts of her hipbones and ribs against his thumb and little finger, the flesh in between soft and yielding. He leans forward, so carefully, and rests his forehead against the back of her head, drawing her gently towards him until they stand within a centimetre of each other, the heat of her body a heady flush so close to his.

She keeps him waiting a good while longer.

Just as he is about to say something, to do _anything_, to provoke a reaction, she heaves in a great shuddering breath and her hands close like a vice over his. She loops her fingers into his with an alarming desperation, and pushes her body back until they are pressed against every inch of each other.

"Don't tell me that unless you mean it," she insists thickly, still staring straight ahead, her throat raspy with held-back tears, "Don't you dare."

James drops his head to one slim pale shoulder, turns his mouth to the skin of her neck, teases kisses against it.

"I mean it," he murmurs there, stamping each word into her throat with a kiss, "You have no idea how deeply I mean it."

Another beat passes, and then Lily is turning, hair tangling around her elbows as she pulls him forward, allows him to crowd her against the piano and trap her there, her fingers wrapping into the front of his shirt.

"Even though Teddy," she says, which isn't a sentence at all. James comprehends her meaning without even having to try.

"Even though _everything_," he corrects, and he means it. Even though the manipulating, the mocking, the anger and the stress and the mind games. Even though anybody outside of Albus finding out spells ruin. Even though Rose could blow everything sky high any moment. Even though they scowl the same way and share every gene and mirror each other without intending to. Even though she pushes and pulls and needs him more deeply than it's safe for one person to need another. _Even though_.

"Oh God," she chokes out, and tears are really spilling over now, hot and salty against her flushed cheeks, "I'm in love with you too." And then she's kissing him, like it's a fact, like it'll go down in history books or like it's been in them all along already. James feels the heat of her mouth against his, the slick slide of her tongue against his own, her hands clenching and splaying spasmodically against his chest. And somewhere between gathering her closer, between her wrapping her arms around his shoulders and her legs around his waist, he realises that he's crying too.

x

They don't even make it to the bedroom. They end up on top of the piano, vase of flowers swept aside with such grand carelessness that it smashes onto the floor without either of them noticing. It isn't until James flops down exhausted at Lily's side that the desperation in the air settles down, and then they both start laughing.

"Fuck," says Lily, "Those were such pretty flowers."

James, still chuckling, thinks hazily about getting up to get his wand and fix the vase, but discounts the effort as not worth it. Instead he slips an arm beneath Lily's shoulders and gathers her up to him, her hair splaying out over his chest, her head tucked perfectly beneath his chin. Her fingers swirl over one of his tattoos, and James wishes in an abstracted manner for a cigarette.

"We could run off," Lily murmurs, fingers still dancing, "Move somewhere way out of the way. Somewhere nobody knew us. Not ever come back."

The idea is so tempting James finds it difficult to breathe for a moment or two. But then reality gently reasserts itself.

"We can't do that to Al," he reminds her softly, "Or Mum and Dad. 'Sides, I'd miss them all too much. Wouldn't you?"

Lily heaves out a sigh, and James smiles as he recognises her acceptance of the point.

"Secret-keeping, then," she says after a moment or two. "We're good at that, at least."

"Mm," James agrees with a grin, shifting slightly, gathering her closer, "It won't be too hard. You can move in here after you finish school."

"Can't I just quit school?" she demands, only half-joking, "Pack it in now?"

James chuckles and winds his fingers into the ends of her hair. "I think you'd break Professor Nott's heart. He's really quite invested in you, I think."

"Poor guy," she remarks. When James lifts his head up, she's wearing this smile that looks like it can't decide whether to be flattered or amused. James kisses it into sheer bliss. When he finally pulls back, she blinks up at him hazily, looking the most content James thinks he's maybe ever seen her look.

"C'mon," she tells him at last, sitting up with a groan, the hard top of the piano ravelling knots into her back, "You need a smoke, and I need a mattress."

James follows her without a second thought.


End file.
